Adaptive Curmudgeon

By now I’ve said just about everything I know about those noble pillars of society that I call COGs.  I wish there were more COGs in America.  They do too.

COGs! Don't give up on America. It needs you!

Here are the last few bits of COG wisdom before I go back to bitching about politicians arranging deck chairs on the Titanic and musing about the wonders of wood heat:

1. COGs are the paragon of common sense.  They won’t explain this to you.  If you can’t inherently understand common sense they’ll politely change the subject to lawnmowers (while mentally assigning you membership in the “useless” category of the population).
2. COGs don’t break laws.  It’s not in their nature. COGs have never been in jail. Ever.
3. In keeping with #2, COGs pay their taxes.  They do this even though they’re certain their hard earned money will be crapped down a rathole by whomever gets it.
4. COGs don’t fuckin’ swear. Exceptions are driving and watching football.  (I do swear…tough shit.)
5. A COG takes a shower every day. You should too.
6. COGs are not convinced we should be just like Europe.  One reason among many is that Europeans don’t take a shower every day.
7. A COG’s lawn is always mowed.  When it snows their sidewalk is well shoveled.  This is how COGs mark their territory, by improving it.
8. I’ve already touched on the mysteries of Reader’s Digest, but I should also note COGs all have good TVs and extended cable.  I find it mysterious that TV doesn’t turn them into lazy drooling idiots.  Apparently they’re capable of limiting their viewing to the Food Network and Football…unlike the rest of America which is constantly tuned into “Ow My Balls“.

So there you have it.  Eight posts about the pillars of society that keep the lights on while their habitat is being overrun but folks who are raising awareness, fostering self-esteem, building consensus, fighting for the working man, spreading the wealth, or doing any of the other things that are code words for “accomplishing nothing at all”.

We need you COGs!  Don’t give up on us.  (Well I’ll admit that they can give up on Detroit and much of California…they’re not miracle workers.  Saving Detroit would be like saving Somalia.  And San Francisco hasn’t been part of reality for decades.  But the rest of America isn’t fully useless yet.)  Keep the home fires burning and hope that we can come back to the fold.

COGs are not stupid.  They are productive, predictable, and infused with common sense.  Some folks associate those traits with “dumb”.  That’s a common, but dumb, misinterpretation.

He could unravel the mysteries of the universe but he probably couldn't change a car tire. Thus; not a COG.

Education

1. No COG is ever illiterate.  But COGs aren’t prone to reading dense literature; leaning more towards Reader’s Digest and car repair manuals.  COG books are printed on paper. A Kindle doesn’t count.
2. For reasons which baffle me, all COGs have a subscription to Reader’s Digest.
3. In the past, a COG with a high school diploma could support a family. This is no longer quite so easy. A COG who is under 40 usually has a Bachelor’s degree or at least training in something boring like accounting or transmission repair.  All COGs have a high school diploma and believe they’d have wound up in a Turkish prison without it.
4. COGs pay off their student loans. If they didn’t think they could pay it off they wouldn’t have taken out the loan.  Duh!  COGs think anyone who takes out a huge student loan had better wind up being a lawyer or surgeon.  Large loans coupled with flaky or low paying majors is a life lesson that will be delivered like a sledgehammer to the head.
5. COGs in college major in something more useful than community organizing but less difficult than nuclear physics.
6. If a COG gets too much education they might become another useless ivory tower egghead.  We’ve already got enough useless eggheads.  COGs know that too much education is almost certainly associated with an absence of common sense.
7. No COG has ever understood “string theory”.  Which is fine because nobody else does either.  COGs think “dark matter” is either bullshit or where God divides by zero.
8. COGs evaluate education almost exclusively in terms of job options.  An approach which seems incredibly obvious to them.

Charity

1. COGs will buy your kid’s girl scout cookies. They’d like you to reciprocate when their kid is selling something.
2. COG charity follows certain rules.  They’ll quietly donate at church or buy fund raiser crap from children but they hate charity pitches from from adults.  They won’t donate to your Peruvian Poet’s Relocation Awareness concert.  They’ve had quite enough “awareness” foisted on them and have realized that “raising awareness” is a fancy way of “accomplishing nothing measurable“.  COGs are too polite to kick you in the balls but that’s what they’re thinking when you try to raise their “awareness“.
3. In real times of need COGs will give effectively, immediately, and willingly.  If your house is struck by a tornado and you happen to live near COGs you’re in for a show.  Male COGs will arrive en-masse at your doorstep with trucks, generators, chainsaws, plywood, tools, and a willingness to rebuild civilization right now.  Make sure to guide them carefully or they’ll inadvertently build a two stall garage and possibly rebuild your car’s transmission.  Male COGs live for this stuff!  Female COGs, for reasons I don’t fully understand, will arrive with a six pound casserole, a gallon of beef stew, and fifty bologna sandwiches.  They’ll have second hand clothes for every member of the affected household and a teddy bear for any child under 12.  They will immediately wash the dishes in your kitchen, even if the roof is gone.  (The roof will quickly be replaced by the men on site but only if they didn’t get distracted and start building a garage.)

Childrearing

1. COGs have sex. This is how they make little COGs. It is not something they need to explain to you. You can hang out with a COG forever without hearing anything about what happens in their bedroom. A COG doesn’t care if you’re straight or gay or if you screw wolverines in a plate of pudding…just so long as it happens nowhere near his or her house.
2. COGs love and value their children. They like your children too but are happy when you take them home before they spill grape juice on the cat.
3. COGs do not spread their DNA like an alley cat. A man who does not know precisely how many children he has fathered is not a COG.  A woman with kids from a series of random men is similarly not a COG.
4. COGs don’t do stupid shit with names. A woman who saddles her child with the name Lakisah-Maye Nevaeh Uneek Simpsons is not a COG. COGs think weird names make it harder to get a job and that’s unthinkably stupid behavior.  COGs give their kids simple names with no baggage; like John and Kathy.  Southern COGs might have two names like Peggy Sue but northern COGs think that’s going too far.
5. COGs make their kids do their homework. They need to get used to doing pointless tasks without complaining.
6. COGs are under no illusions that high school teaches anything to anyone, yet they insist that their children pursue good grades.
7. COGs will attend their kid’s soccer game and every parent teacher meeting.
8. COGs will avoid boring PTA meeting. They secretly think PTA meetings are so people who don’t have a job can look busy.
9. COGs never drop out of high school.  COGs will hyperventilate if their kid wants to drop out.  They don’t care if every teacher in the nearby public school is on crack and functionally illiterate; they’ll drag their kid there regardless.

COGs eat food because it tastes good and starving is stupid.  COGs believe people who get weird in their relationship to food are only doing so because they have too much spare time.

Figure 1. Nothing is more delightful to the COG palette than a backyard BBQ. Note the delightful absence of spices or vegetables.

1. COGs eat food without making a production. If it’s on a plate and can be readily identified as food they’ll eat it.
2. If they are on a diet (COGs fear heart disease and whatever Reader’s Digest wrote about last month) they’ll be quiet about it. A COG will never loudly announce to a restaurant waiter that they are octo-ovo vegan, allergic to chickpeas, require low sodium soup, and would like a side of okra. Even vegetarian COGs (if any exist) would quietly order a salad and shut the hell up if it came with ham on top.
3. COGs can eat a hot dog without wondering what’s in it.
4. COGs aren’t sure what an anti-oxidant is.
5. COGs tip waitresses 20% unless the wait staff actually sets them on fire or stabs them with a fork…in which case they’ll tip 10% and feel guilty about it.
6. COGs drink coffee. They do this because they have a job and they’re tired. COGs have their doubts about people who can be productive using only herbal tea. It doesn’t seem possible.
7. COGs like vegetable gardens but they’re not preparing for the zombie apocalypse or raising organic heirloom kumquats as a political statement. They’re not sure of their motivation. If you ask they will mumble something like “carrots are good for you” or “Grandma had a garden” and then change the subject to lawnmowers.
8. COGs are not susceptible to bulimia.  Eating food just to barf it up seems pretty pointless doesn’t it?  Also, COGs don’t waste food.
9. Rural COGs might have chickens if they already have a farm. An urban COG doesn’t. Hippies have time to petition city zoning boards about poultry; urban COGs plant tomatoes instead.
10. A COG can drink beer or not drink beer without making a scene. Drinking tequila out of the navel of a dancer in Rio is not COG behavior. Bitching at the neighbor about drinking a Miller-Lite is just as uncharacteristic.
11. A COG can smoke cigarettes or not smoke cigarettes without making it a crusade.
12. COGs in the Midwest inexplicably consider cream of mushroom soup a key ingredient for cooking.
13. COGs will slather mayonnaise on potatoes, macaroni, or virtually anything else and call it a “salad”.  They will combine Jello with virtually any kind of fruit and call it “dessert”.
14. COGs might occasionally eat something exotic like kimchi or caviar…but deep in their heart all they really want is a hamburger.

In keeping with yesterday’s clarification I’ve added a twist to my “Spot the COG” game. Today I’m offering a COG and a “beyond COG”. Neither one is a useless derelict yahoo. Both pull their own weight, pay their own bills, and are a net benefit to society. There are no trust funders, yoga instructors, vegan poets, or community organizers implied in either photo.

The fictional character on the left is Walt Kowalski. (Note: If you haven’t watched Gran Torino quit reading this post and rent it right now.)  Kowalski is a retired blue collar  auto worker. He has clearly endeavored to be the best husband, father, and human being possible; even to the point of agonizing over the “boat motor incident”.  He religiously maintains his beloved muscle car. He is dismayed by the decline in his neighborhood.  “Below COG” newcomers have displaced COGs and have fomented anti-social behavior. Kowalski does not tolerate lawlessness and fearlessly tries to stop or defuse it wherever and whenever he can.

A man’s home is his castle and Kowalski defends his ferociously. He’s pictured here using an M1 Garand to illustrate his deeply held belief that people who want to engage in hoodlum violence had better get off his damn lawn.

During the movie he takes a non-COG under his wing and instructs him on how to live properly. These include a work ethic, understanding the value of a good wife, the importance of a car, how to hold down a job, the importance of charity, the use and care of tools, and how to be a better person who makes wise decisions in all things. Kowalski is not racist but if someone is acting inappropriately he will explain their failings right to their zipperhead face.

The fictional character on the right is Burt Gummer.  (Note: If you haven’t watched Tremors you should watch it this weekend.) Burt Gummer has created his version of paradise; a custom built compound in the remote desert. He is armed to the teeth but is hiding from (rather than courting) involvement in what the eminent zombie apocalypse. He could ride out anything up to and including nuclear war in blissful peace but “goddamn underground monsters” just happen to attack him.  (Gummer has that kind of luck.)

This man’s house is not merely a castle; it is a fortress.  Gummer defends it more ferociously than some countries defend their capital. During an attempted home invasion he and his (inexplicably out of his league) wife unleash enough firepower to sink a battleship. They defeat a creature that has been killing everything in sight!  Gummer proudly crows “broke into the wrong goddamn rec room didn’t ya’ you bastard!”  Now that’s home defense!

Poor Gummer is treated as as comic relief even as his resources and skills save everyone around him. Yet, no matter how many indignities he faces, he never gives up hope. When the Soviet Union collapses, causing Reba McEntire to decline filming of the second movie, he becomes a free-lance monster killing entrepreneur. Thus demonstrating his work ethic and ability to turn hard won skills into commercial success. As with all business contracts, he is hampered by lousy managerial guidance.  He is deprived of “mission critical need to know information”. Even so he adapts and survives; fighting against all odds until he is “entirely out of ammo, this has never happened to me before”.

Gummer, despite humorous bad luck, deeply believes in peace through superior firepower and the wisdom of preparedness. Thus earning him membership in my list of favored fictional characters.  It also makes me wonder how a lame actor like Michael Gross did so well in the role?

In summation: both are self-supporting and society benefits from both. (One in the case of social disarray, the other in the case of attack by monsters). One is a COG and the other is “beyond COG”.

In a perfect world I would have only two neighbors and Gummer and Kowalski would be those neighbors.  I would stay the hell of their lawn’s and they’d afford me the same courtesy.

I am remiss. I was so intent on honoring the staid and uncool but ultimately essential COGs that I left out the more colorful elements of my unified field theory of everything. I planned on expounding further when I got around to it. But the more specifically I describe COGs the more folks I exclude and the thinner the ice upon which I’m skating. I’d better add some details before I get myself in trouble.

First of all I’d like to say that I don’t fit the COG profile. I just can’t blend in. I fucking swear. I ride a motorcycle. I hang out in the wilderness. I’m armed to the teeth. I have a homestead. I spent too long in college, don’t watch TV, and don’t subscribe to Readers Digest (that’s in a future COG post). I think Bush was a twit and Obama is a man-child. (So much for the two parties which dominate 99% of politics.) I prefer the company of my tractor to just about everyone…and my tractor is broke. I spent all morning repairing my chicken coop and now I’m using a laptop in a rural diner where a cell phone is considered pretentious. Most of the people in the diner are discussing the corn harvest and weather. They fit together; they’re a community and they’re COGs. I’m a loner and I don’t fit in. I’m not a COG.

But that doesn’t necessarily assign me membership in the hordes of useless jackoffs that we disdain. Being a non-COG has no meaning until you ponder the next statement:

“An honest man is one who knows that he can’t consume more than he has produced.”

(Yeah, I stole that from Ayn Rand. Why not? I still think she got too excited about “captains of industry” and needed an editor with a meat cleaver.)

Trust fund losers, community organizers, lifelong politicians, and their like consume more than they produce. They’re a net loss to society. They are below COG. Society can only tolerate so many of them. I’m not alone in fearing they’re overloading the whole shebang.

The other side of the spectrum is beyond COG. These are non-COG folks that pull their own weight and also deliberately choose to live in ways that are extreme, unusual, or interesting. At the risk of sounding arrogant, I think a lot of my readers belong there.  I like to think I belong there too.  (But I may be biased.)

There are a lot of groups that are beyond COGs. Most of which are delightful and vibrant. They’re interesting and positive elements in my unified field theory of humanity (patent pending, your mileage may vary, take only as directed). I’m glad we have them.

Lets start with groups that took a good look at modern society and decided withdraw and play a different game. One example might be the Amish. They’re quiet, law abiding, and produce more than they consume. Does that make them part of the big boring population of COGs? Nope. They’re rare, esoteric, and they’re never going to be a big portion of America’s population. Yet they’re good for us. They’re preserving a way of life and certain important technologies (ironic no?). Their very presence is a spiritual buffer. We’re better off with them than without them. Collectively they’re a storehouse of knowledge. A support in time of need. A spiritual lightness in the atmosphere. They help hold up society even as they don’t play the same game. These folks buttress society.

Other folks who are beyond COGs deliberately light the path so others can find their way beyond. Aggregates of geeky open source software programmers freed my laptop from Windows. (Thank you so much!) Heritage seed collectors offer alternatives to Burpee’s hybrid tomatoes. Home schoolers raise whiz kids that embarrass the heck out of terminally mediocre public schools. The TEA Party makes the two main political parties lose sleep in their sleazy conjugal bed. Folks like this are lighthouses. They’re all over the Internet; giving advice about guns, homesteads, how to live free of regulation, how to do whatever it is that they’ve done to go beyond.  I turn to their advice all the time. I’m thankful they’re there.

Others see what the rest of us cannot and make the impossible happen. Thus improving the lot of mankind. Henry Ford took a look at millionaires toying with gorgeous but overpriced Stanley Steamers and made the cheap ugly Model T that farmers could afford. Edison’s lights let adults stay up past sunset. Marconi made free music come from a box.*  Norman Borlaug fed more humans than any man in all of history. These are catalysts.

So there you have it. Buttress, lighthouse, and catalyst; three ways you can be a non-COG without being a trust fund douche bag. There are other options I haven’t mentioned yet. As many paths as there are people who deliberately choose their way. Just because you’re not a COG, don’t assume I think the worst.

A.C.

* No, I don’t consider iDevices the kind of miracles radio was!  Jobs could really rock a turtleneck but put it in perspective.  Marconi did something that was limited to wizards and legend before his time.  Jobs made a Wurlitzer portable.  (Also Tesla was a genius but he was more of mad scientist than a catalyst.)

COGs have a lifestyle which has become remarkable as society around it has changed (see: “tanked”).  Many demographics have somehow created a mess of their lives while COGs keep on keepin’ on like they always have.  COGs take pride in their household’s lack of drama.

Figure 1: A nice COG house. Unfortunately this house whas subsequently the scene of non-COG activity.

1. COGs live in houses. A COG never truly feels at home in a condo, rental, timeshare, RV, cardboard box, or yurt. They endeavor to own their house.
2. COGs buy a house solely so they can live in it. They think investments are investments and houses are houses. You can tell the difference because you never have to re-shingle a 401(k).  COGs have simple mortgages and make payments religiously. COGs secretly wonder how everyone who doesn’t have a house gets through the night.
3. COGs moved out of their parent’s house as soon as possible.  They want their kids to do the same.
4. COGs do not have to live in the suburbs but that is one of their main habitats.
5. COGs have a lawn and they mow it. Lawns are important to COGs. Without a lawn where would the dog shit? COGs mow their own lawns. Hiring a guy named Jose and his six brothers to trim around the petunias just seems weird to a COG. A 20 horsepower riding lawnmower for a quarter acre is reasonable. An electric push mower is not.
6. COG hobbies include fishing,gardening, and inexplicably, bowling. Modern science cannot explain bowling.
7. Rural COGs hunt deer. Urban COGs don’t. Extremes either way are not COG fashion. If you have “Save Bambi” tattooed on your thigh or recently went on a safari to bag a Yeti you’re not a COG.
8. Male COGs have tools and do basic repairs to their home and/or car. They might build shelves or a doghouse. If you need a plumber to put a washer in the kitchen faucet or if you’re building a 40′ steampunk airship in your backyard, you’re not a COG.
9. COGs who get married mean it when they take their vows. They intend to stay married forever. Did you know 50% all marriages end in divorce? The other 50% don’t. COGs are still around!
10. If a COG has a pet it’s a dog or a cat. COGs do not have miniature horses or pot bellied pigs. A farmer COG might have cows. If so, he won’t name them.

So there you have it.  The well maintained and inherently reasonable COG household.  The polar opposite of the freak shows which seem increasingly common.  I’ve got a lot more respect for a COG’s house than a rock star’s mansion.

In honor of COG week I propose a game called Spot the COG. Which of these two images represents a COG?

On the left is a machine designed specifically to handle solid waste.  It worked non-stop longer than every living thing on the planet.  It outlasted all of it’s type.  Never faltering, never stopping, never pondering it’s fate.

On the right is a machine that smokes, drinks, and will pick your pocket.

Continue reading →

COGs are rarely overtly political.  COGs correctly view politics as a flamboyant method to avoid getting a real job.  However they seem to wind up financing damn near everything through their taxes.  You’d think this would encourage them to get more active but instead it encourages them to view the rest of the population as useless layabouts.  (Which, statistically speaking, is true.)

Figure 1: A visual demonstration of a politically active NON-COG. There are no photos of politically active COGs because they're all working on something boring like the street plowing schedule for Muncie Indiana.

1. COGs are annoyed when Al Sharpton calls them a racist. They are not racist. They think Al Sharpton needs a real job. Something useful like replacing tractor brake pads. Yo-yos like Al Sharpton would be less annoying if they had a purpose in life that didn’t involve bitching at COGs.
2. COGs are annoyed when a fruit loop wearing the American flag as a turban, a dog collar, a diaper, and Nikes is prancing around at the gay pride parade. COGs are not homophobic. However, COGs want you to quit blocking the road because it’ll make them late for their daughter’s orthodontist appointment. COGs assume the fruit loop in the streets would calm down if he had a job.
3. COGs are annoyed when someone self detonates in a discotheque in Jerusalem. COGs are pretty sure God doesn’t communicate through explosives. COGs are absolutely convinced that jerks like that are what happens when people don’t have jobs.
4. A COG can have a gun or not have a gun. A COG who doesn’t have a gun (usually urban) doesn’t go to anti-gun candlelight vigils. A COG who does have a gun (all rural and some urban) doesn’t staple the second amendment to the front door. All rural COGs have guns, this is tradition and COGs adhere to tradition.  Gun owning COGs don’t generally own flashy firearms. If you have a cannon you’re not a COG.  COGs, regardless of whether they have firearms or not, do not care if you have a weapon; unless you’re a criminal in which case they’d like you put in jail for for a couple hundred years.  If you’re trying to rob a COGs house and they have a weapon, they will use it.  They’d rather not because they don’t want the hassle of patching a hole in the drywall.
5. COGs vote. COGs won’t try to get you to vote for their guy even if they think your guy is a moron. COGs are pretty sure your guy is a moron. COGs wonder how most politicians got that far without having a real job. They wonder if their politician ever mowed his own lawn. They’re sure yours hasn’t. Until recently a COG would always vote for one of the two useless parties in America. COGs are increasingly voting third party but do so furtively. COGs don’t put political bumper stickers on their car because that would mess up the paint.
6. A COG can go to church without speaking in tongues.  A COG may think an atheist is going straight to hell and still help him install a garage door.
7. A COG doesn’t care whether the electricity is made from coal, windmills, or unicorn farts, so long as the refrigerator keeps the milk cold.

When I was growing up I was taught that the advent of the personal automobile was a vast improvement in the freedom, mobility, and general welfare of all Americans.  This was true.  Children are now taught that people should enjoy being herded onto mass transit to sit between homeless derelicts that throw up on your shoes and gang bangers looking for a fight.

The dawning of a new age of freedom!

COGs understand cars.  They break the world into three categories; people with cars, folks like children and the elderly who cannot have a car, and people who don’t have a car as a demonstration of their inherent uselessness.

An adult without a car is going nowhere both literally and figuratively.  (Though COGs might shy away from flowery language like “figuratively”.)

1. All COGs have cars. They have a car because they have actual lives and actual responsibilities. They need to get to work…every stinking damn day and not just when the bus is running.  They need to get to their kid’s soccer game. They need to get groceries. They need to visit Grandma.
2. COGs do not oppose electric cars, recumbent bikes, in-line skates, or whatever flamboyant horseshit non-COGs choose to gallivant around in. They only oppose paying for it. Also it would be nice if you stayed the hell off the road. COGs secretly wonder how the heck you can hold down a job if you use a recumbent bike as a means of transportation.
3. COGs have valid drivers licenses and insurance on their cars.
4. COGs don’t drive drunk.
5. If a COG gets a speeding ticket for going five over the limit they’ll try to keep it under their hat.
6. Male COGs believe adult men who don’t have their own car should never get laid.  Female COGs will never seriously consider a liasion with a man that doesn’t have his own car.
7. COGs never park illegally.  They’re not sure why.
8. COGs appreciate superior vehicles but will be satisfied by darned near anything that is guaranteed to start on a cold morning and move under its own power.
9. COGs view car leases with suspicion but will usually accept payments on a car loan.
10. A COG, when facing dire financial stress, view the loss of their car as the first step on a slippery slope that leads to doing tricks in an alley in Tijuana.